DayZ Dedicated Server Hardware Inquiries

[madkowa@gmail.com 11]

To whom it may concern,

I'm here representing a few people, including myself, who are looking to pitch in and get at least two DayZ servers up and running under a single dedicated box. We have come across quite a few options and have stumbled upon one that looks promising, but we want to be sure by asking some non-host-specific questions geared towards DayZ:

1) How many cores are ArmA II / DayZ servers optimized to utilize as it pertains to threads? For example, if I were to have to choose between a six-core, 2.3GHz processor and a four-core, 3.2GHz processor, which one should I choose with just performance in mind?

2) Does the answer to the question above change given we plan on running two DayZ servers on the same box? If so, how? If not, why?

3) How much player data is stored on the server compared to that of the HIVE? Would this become a problem given our plan to run more than one server on the same dedicated box? I see it is suggested for servers to run under an SSD, which is why I ask.

4) Is there anything else we should know as far as hardware selection is concerned? I realize a lot of this stuff really becomes irrelevant if the network we choose turns out to be slow and/or unreliable, but that aside, we want to make sure we know as much as we can before making a decision.

Keep in mind that while I consider myself technically inclined, especially as it pertains to software, we're really looking for answers specifically tailored to DayZ servers and optimal hardware selection for them. That said, I apologize if any of the above questions have simple answers or just come off as being stupid. :P

Thanks in advance! :)

[devserial 1]

I can only speak from the side of a hardware guru and not specifically to the requirements of this game but here is what you need to know.

I don't want to get technical so what's important to know is games like this use many small resource files which spinning drives take anywhere from 5 to 50 times as long to pull as an ssd does. You want an ssd.

As for the CPU, I run 2x16-core 2.1ghz amd's at work running many hundreds of simultaneous vm's on them, you are running a 50 player game server, if you gave me the exact model of cpu you had in mind I could give you a yes/no but in general for what you're doing the 4 core is plenty fine. If it's a hyper threaded 4 core, all the better.

If you're building a server, build a server, it may seem fine to use something like an i5 2500K intel cpu and 16 gig of fancy heat sinked ram, but that would be incredibly stupid. Pay extra, get the lower clocked xeon, on a server motherboard, with buffered dimms, and a 256gig enterprise level ssd, and you can run 10 servers on it.

[madkowa@gmail.com 11]

Thanks for the input. I also chatted with some guys in the DayZ IRC, so between what you've explained here and their suggestions, I think I may actually be good to go now. :)

[nahaz 132]

I had a chat with str8dmpn (spelling?) whos the server host of tx6 and he told me he ran the server on 8x3.2ghz and that server is perfectly smooth for me (100+ fps).

4 cores is probably enough and I concur with devserial, get servergrade hardware that is made to be online 24/7